China

From the archive

In chaos divided

The following article ran as our cover leader in the issue dated June 10th 1989

AFTER the butchery in Beijing, chaos now threatens all of China. As protest spread to city after city this week, there was only one glimmer of hope. The murderous brutality of the troops who took Tiananmen Square from student protesters on June 4th has provoked not only the incoherent rage of the Chinese people, but also a more organised resistance by those parts of the army and the Communist party that had opposed martial law and are now sickened at the slaughter. The elderly Mr Deng Xiaoping, the man behind the violence, may be dead or dying. The tanks massed in and around Tiananmen Square may be there not just to frighten off protesters, but to defend the claim to power of Mr Deng's ally-in-blood, President Yang Shangkun, against more liberal challengers. Even if Mr Deng survives the turmoil he has willed on China, his desperate gamble on brute force to shore up his discredited rule may yet turn out to be his last.

China's is not the ﬁrst communist party to declare war on its own people. Nor, in sheer numbers of victims, is this the grimmest of the tragedies that have disﬁgured the party's 40-year rule. In the ten years from the mid-1960s the thuggery of the cultural revolution claimed many thousands of lives; victims of the famines brought on by Mao's other stupidities were numbered in millions. in the past China's Communist leaders have hardly been squeamish either about the consequences of their policies or about the use of force to restore order. Yet there are differences this time, big ones. During the cultural revolution the army was brought in to shore up party authority, but also to defend the people from the violence of the Red Guards. This time Mr Deng in his desperation has ordered the so-called People’s Liberation Army to turn their weapons on the people, using the troops at his command to mow down unarmed and often unresisting civilians.

Not only is the army, or the parts of it loyal to Mr Deng and Mr Yang, being asked to do a different job. It is doing it in a different China. Today's protesters are not like the weary cannon-fodder of the struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, who had known little but brutal occupation, civil war and economic hardship. Many of those who died in Beijing this week were the best educated and the brightest of the young people on whom a modern China must depend for its future.

They have been dying as, courtesy of television, the world watched. But the world has watched freedom being extinguished by communists before. It was watching Poland in 1981, when Solidarity was suppressed by martial law, in an inevitable showdown after more than ten years of festering crisis. What has stunned people inside and outside China is that this week’s violence is happening in a country that for ten years under Mr Deng’s leadership has been working hard, and for the most part happily, to make itself a richer, more stable place, more open to the outside world, more inclined to judge itself by world standards—and be judged by them.

Even if they win this round, and their troops are able to keep them in power for a time, Mr Deng and Mr Yang will have solved none of the problems that have cast China into chaos. The use of troops to settle what started not just as a row over how to handle student protesters, but really as an argument over the whole future of reform has come close to destroying the two institutions—the Communist party and the army—that between them have kept China whole. The only reason that either party or army still has a shred of respectability left is that each contains senior ﬁgures who are appalled at the violence Mr Deng is doing to China. They want to end it. Although three weeks have passed since Mr Deng and his henchmen elbowed aside the moderate party boss, Mr Zhao Ziyang, to declare martial law in parts of Beijing, they have been unable to muster the Central Committee majority needed to replace him. Mr Qiao Shi has now emerged as the likely choice for party boss among the shoot-firsters. But since the shooting started Mr Deng may have alienated some of his own would-be supporters.

Count the cost not just in livesBeyond the individual careers, possibly even the lives, of party leaders that are now on the line is the fate of China's economic reforms. Although troops and tanks can hold the centre of China's cities, its factories and farms cannot be run at rifle point. Unless China can quickly pull itself out of the chaos that has engulfed it and turn back to reform, the fruits of ten years’ hard labour by millions of ordinary Chinese hoping for a better life will be lost. It is a measure both of the vicious struggle that is going on within the party, and of the bankruptcy of Mr Deng’s rule, that he is prepared to hazard all that he has seen China do for itself in order to keep his own grip on power.

The price he is prepared to pay is catastrophically high. So far governments around the world have mostly settled for blunt condemnations of the brutality, cancelling official visits, suspending trade talks and refusing to sell the small amounts of arms that China buys abroad. Diplomatic channels have been kept open in the hope that they can be used to exert moral pressure on Mr Deng to bring the killing to an end. That moral pressure must be relentless. But it may have little effect. Mr Deng chose violence, despite the damage he knew it would do. The real sanctions are the ones Mr Deng's wilfulness has already brought directly upon himself.

He has destroyed the conﬁdence which, however fragile, had managed to keep the people of Hongkong resigned to their fate as the date approaches in 1997 when Britain will yield up the colony to China. Unless that conﬁdence can somehow be repaired, what is eventually handed over may be an economic basket-case, not the thriving entrepot China is counting on. Similarly, the large sums of money invested in China by foreign banks and businesses over the past ten years have mostly represented the triumph of hope over reason. The hope was that, as China got the reforming habit, the return in the longer run would justify the money spent. Much of the growth in China’s booming seaboard provinces has come from foreign money, foreign know-how and foreign trade. But foreign companies in China were putting up their shutters this week. They fear not only for their safety, but also for future business.

If the struggle at the top cannot be settled quickly or can be settled only on Mr Deng's terms, then China will continue to tear itself apart. And even if Mr Zhao or his supporters do eventually win back power, and reverse the verdict on the protesters as “counter-revolutionaries”, that will not by itself restore foreign conﬁdence in a benign China, not the people’s conﬁdence in the party.

Faced with a choice between more reform and a small loosening of the party's grip on power, Mr Deng chose to strangle reform. He could do so because China's Communist party is still at the mercy of its leaders’ whims and fat beyond the people’s power to control. It may be premature to hope that the remarkable acts of bravery shown by Beijing's citizens this week will soon be translated into genuine democracy. But China’s people will not stop trying.

The Economist underestimated Deng's strength and the willingness of the Chinese people to sacrifice freedom for order. Some of that was lack of knowledge of CCP internal politics; some of it stems from TE's belief (more from hope than evidence) that the people of the world want freedom as badly as TE wants if for them. In fact, most people only value more freedom after they've already experienced some. It takes decades, generations even, of partial freedom to nurture strong desires for freedom among people who have never known it.

The TE commented "The elderly Mr Deng Xiaoping, the man behind the violence, may be dead or dying." Mr Deng Xiaoping died in 1997. Was the writer of this article in 1989 making an informed opinion? Or was the writer making all kinds of wishy-washy statements? And as it turned out, tragic as the Tiananmen Crackdown was, it was the right decision. Isn't there a saying "Do not be afraid of doing a bit of evil in order to do a great amount of good". The West condemns China and the CCP for acting in the best interests of China ignoring that the West as in turns out have even more blood in their hands.

The article was insightful to point out the inner party struggle was a staple problem to tackle right after the bloodshed. Deng was also pragmatic enough to keep the economic reform, which was blamed to be the cause of the protest by the conservatives.

What the article overestimated is the power of people in China and underestimated the strong propaganda machine and organizational power of China. 25 years later, as every year, no vigil, no memorial were allowed. Students' motives were doubted. Amnesia are widespread. Some of those who knew about 64 would praise the decision to kill and torture their brightest students, concluding the torture and blood on their young generations helped China to grow and therefore the massacre should be justified.

This extreme consequence of the incident has constrained the inner party struggle, which was the major cause of all turbulences in China after 1949. Without the in-party fight, China has enjoyed society stability and economic growth for 25 years, but for how long can it last?

No one can tell whether Xi Jinping's crackdown on various big heads will stir up an inner party power struggle again. Weiquan (defense of rights) movements are widespread now not in the political aspect, but more about their rights of consumer, medical treatment and property ownership and no one knows when they will ask for more political rights.

If any turmoil happens again, will the Massacre of 1989 be the solution for those who praised the Massacre? If that were not, why would it be in 1989? There should be a better way to tell those party magnates not to mess up the life of people, and control their ambition for power. The solution is never to kill your own peoples.

Li Pang, the primer at the time, published a memoir to deny his role in making the decision. Even a guy like him would feel shame for getting involved in such disgraceful decision.

The Economist wants "freedom" for the people of the world? That's news to me.

It seems to me that TE wants to put them in perpetual bondage to the Anglo powers... much like today's Egypt, too bogged down by its internal chaos to accomplish anything of note. If China went that way, the Anglo "Thousand-Year Reich" would be quite secure. (Of course, there are always other pesky obstacles to take care of: mainly Russia and India.)

Speaking of anniversaries, the Iraq invasion turned 11 last March -- a conflict that brought more bloodshed than there ever was on Tiananmen Square, whose deadly consequences are still being felt every day by ordinary Iraqis; yet somehow it skipped the notice of TE writers.

You think Egypt is in bondage to a mythical united Anglosphere? It was the Saudi royals who bailed out Egypt and who now keep the military in control. That's the future of the world without America: Russia, China and Saudi Arabia controlling or destabilizing their neighbors as needed.

'So far governments around the world have mostly settled 'for blunt condemnations of the brutality, cancelling official visits, suspending trade talks and refusing to sell the small amounts of arms that China buys abroad. Diplomatic channels have been kept open in the hope that they can be used to exert moral pressure on Mr Deng to bring the killing to an end. That moral pressure must be relentless. But it may have little effect. Mr Deng chose violence, despite the damage he knew it would do.'

Whatever you western powers and media did in past and will do in future could not and should not upset order and terrorize Chinese people who are led by the CPC ( of course not every member of CPC is sane) to translate their country into a country by law instead of by a single person because it is the majority Chinese people who know better than anyone else what they want or what sort of democracy they are in need. They are equally aware what western powers have brought to them in history in name of mercy.

Because Chinese life is as cheap as 5 cents, and killing those cheap lives are socially acceptable, I come up with some humble suggestions to help prosper the Chinese economy.

Henan has a reputation for breeding theft and robbers, so anyone with Henan hukou should have their hands removed. Dongbei is home to gangsters. Their men should be injected with female hormones.

Beijing is filled with too many Guaners, a second generation of government officials who abused their (daddy's) power for economic benefits, so those officials are castrated - well, this one may be popular.

Those who broke a one-child policy should receive a forced abortion and compulsory castration. Opps, it's actually what they're doing. If they're 7 month pregnancy, that's great because after the abortion you can sell the babies to rich businessmen to make a great soup. It's not only yummy, it helps to kick start a new industry and benefit the economy. Opps again, they're doing it.

Those who earn less than RMB 3200 a month, the national average, should be placed into a gas chamber because they're not only cheap, but dysfunctional unproductive loser. Teach them a lesson of self sacrifice to boost the Chinese average income.

As Chinese life is damned cheap, according to the pro-massacre commentators here, the economic experiment should start with the relatives of those people first because it's more likely they'll support it. Their sacrifice will be forgotten, but we'll love the Chinese government more.

Of course they have a choice. The Chinese overthrew the KMT to bring the CCP to power. They'd be perfectly capable of overthrowing the CCP if enough of them desired to do so. Similarly, the troops at Tiananmen had a choice between shooting the protesters or joining them; they chose the former.

The CCP continues to hold power by virtue of the continued complicity and support of hundreds of millions of Chinese people.

Free markets, free trade, free speech, free people. Yes, that's pretty much TE's editorial policy. Yes, the Americans and British tend to do well economically when there's a lot of individual freedom and governments do not restrain trade, but so do lots of other people everywhere. Somebody will best the Americans at the American system, just as the Americans bested the British when it was the British system. There is no perpetual bondage; others can beat America at America's game without having to defeat America militarily. The people that beat America will probably keep most of America's rules, though, just as America kept Britain's. They're good rules.

As for Iraq, it's not a relevant question. No matter how wrong Iraq was, or George Bush, or TE for supporting him, those mistakes will never make Tiananmen right. Killing your sons and daughters to preserve the rule of a political party, even a party that has sound economic plans, is never justified. China could have accommodated the modest aspirations of those protesters to greater freedom without derailing their economic progress (Japan did, Korea did, Taiwan did). The CCP chose not to because of a jealous refusal to diminish their power. For that they were condemned, are condemned, and will be condemned.

China enjoys something that most others do not: The monopoly of and exclusive control on media, discussion forums, web pages, textbook, books and every source of information.

Most people can't sing as good as Sinatra in karaoke, but they can tell who sings better. Most people are not great thinkers, but they can tell who make a better point.

When Chinese netizens whine the credibility of Chinese media, what else choices do you have? You don’t like People’s Daily, and you have …well, CCTV or Global Times? You must be kidding me.

Since a few years ago, the information control on some less sensitive topics is relaxing, especially the topics which are not related to the power of the Central government and Unification. People now challenge clumsy explanations given by small local officials and Weibo sharps more critical opinions on them. These topics are usually trivial. The popular picks include an illegal vendor who got beaten up by a Chengguang and an official who wore luxury watches.

But Tianmenan Square is not what you can freely debate. The wealth of central-level, province-level officials is a no-no. Censorship is massive. Exclusive control on these topics will lead people to either take all the government stances, or be ill informed or indifferent to it.

Brash washing happens in a sneaky way. The propaganda machine will not tell you, “We killed someone and now I’m going to brash wash you with my only exclusive view on it.” It carefully screens out all alternative views, infiltrate you with an exclusive (called official) view and ban further follow-ups on it. They wisely allow Weibo or several forums to freely discuss trivial news events and give you an illusion of freedom.

You certainly can argue western media is controlled by big groups as well, but you will fool yourself by equating the western media manipulation to the Chinese one. Maybe when your fellows whine poisoned foods, ask them to read the History of Swindled Foods and justify the swindled milk formula and sewage oil in China. Pathetic.